topic Re: General Feedback after ~8 months on a non fixed contract in Plusnet Feedback

General Feedback after ~8 months on a non fixed contract

andyfinlayson — Thu, 03 Mar 2016 16:37:24 GMT

Generally the service was pretty good.
Delivery and setup went well. The 6mb out of max 8mb estimate was on the low side. Speed tests regularly showed it was 7.9mb. Upload was capped at 1mb which is a little disappointing as skype call quality sometimes suffered.
The value for money though was definitely not good. I chose not to have a fixed term contract as i am leaving the country in search of pastures new. However i paid for this 'flexibility' with an exceptionally high price. £12.99 compared to as little as Free with a contract.
To compound that i was slapped with a mystery £30 cancellation fee.
I'm in the process of cancelling all my utilities and services at the minute as i leave my green and pleasant homeland and this is the only service / utility that has such a fee.
Plusnet will undoubtedly claim that it's not them charging me it's mean old BT. Well it certainly doesn't sit very well with me and leaves me with a bad taste in my mouth. BTW BT didn't charge me a cancellation fee when i left them last June. I reached the end of my contract with them and closed the account gracefully.
Service for me was 8/10, i got what i ordered.
Product 7/10 while it worked as advertised it was never stellar and i saw plenty of buffering.
Price 2/10 if it wasn't for the flexibility to cancel and not have to buy out the entire contract i wouldn't have used plusnet. I spent the same in 8 months as i would over 18 months if not more. I'd encourage people to consider the cost of early cancellation as i suspect overall you're better off.
Overall 6/10 a solid middle of the road meh.

Re: General Feedback after ~8 months on a non fixed contract

jelv — Thu, 03 Mar 2016 16:49:32 GMT

If you migrated the ADSL from BT to Plusnet the service wasn't cancelled and hence BT Wholesale didn't charge BT Retail.
The fee is charged when you terminate the ADSL without migrating to a new supplier.

Re: General Feedback after ~8 months on a non fixed contract

spraxyt — Thu, 03 Mar 2016 18:36:56 GMT

I thought the cancellation charge didn't apply for no-contract customers?
See http://www.plus.net/support/customer_service/billing/cessation_charges.shtml#appliesWhen

Re: General Feedback after ~8 months on a non fixed contract

Darkfire — Thu, 03 Mar 2016 18:39:45 GMT

The £30 will not be a cancellation charge for anything contractual.
That will be a cessation free to physically cease the broadband asset as Jelv suggests, when we took the service this will have been in the form of a migration hence the asset didn't need cancelling, due to the service not moving to another provider we do charge what we are charged to cease the asset.

Re: General Feedback after ~8 months on a non fixed contract

spraxyt — Thu, 03 Mar 2016 18:47:20 GMT

But Plusnet's own cessation charges page says it doesn't apply when the user pays the extra for no-contract.

Re: General Feedback after ~8 months on a non fixed contract

Darkfire — Thu, 03 Mar 2016 18:58:25 GMT

I've discussed this with a cancellations colleague who has said that information is correct and the fee shouldn't be charged.
@Andy, would you be able to let me know which invoice this was charged on so I can get it refunded as I don't see any charges for £30 or an invoice specific to cessation
Thanks

Re: General Feedback after ~8 months on a non fixed contract

HarryB — Fri, 04 Mar 2016 12:25:43 GMT

Looking at the account I think there may be some confusion around what's being charged on the account.
It appears when you called to cancel yesterday, the advisor took the cost up until the date you want the services to stop from. However on 02/03/16, an invoice had already been generated for your standard monthly cost (£29.48) once this clears we'll be able to refund this back to you as you've also paid up to the 17th with the manual payment yesterday.
There is no £30 cessation fee due as you're on the non-contract option.

Re: General Feedback after ~8 months on a non fixed contract

andyfinlayson — Mon, 07 Mar 2016 10:48:25 GMT

Ok what's the best way to get in touch with one of you fine people to either explain the charge or to help with a refund?
Not sure i really fancy explaining this over the phone to an agent (no disrespect)
Also my situation has slightly changed over the weekend and i'd like to delay the cancellation date to the end of the month (just to confuse the matter further )
Any chance of a callback? My mobile number should be listed in the account details if i've not heard anything on this thread by 1pm i'll brave the call centre route.

Re: General Feedback after ~8 months on a non fixed contract

HarryB — Mon, 07 Mar 2016 13:21:15 GMT

To alter the cancellation date, it would be best to call our Customer Options Team directly on 0800 013 2632 (Selecting the option for thinking of leaving) There's currently no wait to get through to them

Re: General Feedback after ~8 months on a non fixed contract

andyfinlayson — Mon, 07 Mar 2016 14:11:37 GMT

So update:
Ok the 1st agent i spoke to in the cancellation team said "ok in order to do that i'll have to pass you through to the billing team as you'll have to pay the balance" fair enough i'll pay to extend another 2 weeks.
Then the Billing team who had no idea what i was talking about so i had to explain everything again. (Don't these guys do handovers?)
After a while the agent was ok to extend the cancellation date and add the extra onto my bill via direct debit (i thought i'd already finished my billing cycles but he knows best i guess....)
When i brought up the topic of the £30 cessation fee i was blankly told that this charge it was correct that i had paid it.
He also basically said "who do you think knows these things best? me on the billing team or random people on the forums?"
I asked him to add a note to my account to state that i had queried this along with his response.

Re: General Feedback after ~8 months on a non fixed contract

HarryB — Mon, 07 Mar 2016 14:34:38 GMT

Angry feedback email sent to their manager
Leave this with me, I'll make sure it's sorted out.